Why Multi-Cloud is the Future of Enterprise Cloud Computing

Many organizations are increasingly choosing to work with multiple private and public clouds for a host of different incentives such as to deploy their applications, avoid vendor lock-in, and exploit best-of-breed solutions. Multi-cloud refers to deploying several different public clouds which don't necessarily include a private cloud. 

Multi-cloud deployments have several uses like leverage multiple IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) vendors, or it could use a different vendor for IaaS, PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) services and can be purely for redundancy and system backup, or it can incorporate different cloud vendors for different services. 

We have been dwelling in an era, where data is being generated at an exponential rate. And to manage this growth amid the new working models, it has become a prerequisite for businesses to adopt cloud computing solutions and pace up the migration process. This is not restricted to large enterprises, but SMBs too need to scale up their cloud migration journeys considering they are a key contributor to our economy, employing more than 100 million people. Moreover, with the startup ecosystem expanding and becoming popular day by day, adoption of cloud is equally important for them, to become future-ready,” said Srinivas Rao, Senior Director, System Engineering, Dell Technologies, India. 

The leadership team from Dell Technologies opined that IT leaders should start moving their critical applications into public and private cloud, as per their requirements and sensitivity of their data. Along with these, they need to finalize the SLA and security agreements so that their customers and business data are thoroughly covered under a security shield, 24*7. Cloud computing can prove to be a game-changer for organizations given the large-scale benefits it offers. They are easy to use and require a minimum investment and offer complete data protection and seamless remote working experience. The deployment will help businesses with a customized data storage and management system that will enable them to scale up their projects and be at par with their global counterparts.

Most businesses that move to the cloud mostly end up with some kind of multi-cloud deployment. RightScale's reports of 2019 show Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the clear leader in public cloud, with Microsoft Azure making rapid gains and Google Cloud Platform some way back in third place. Other leading public cloud players are VMware Cloud, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud.

Why Use a Multi-cloud Infrastructure

First, multiple cloud providers are widely used for features like compliance which satisfies data governance requirements that require customer data to be held in particular locations. Unless organizations are willing to create and maintain their own on-premises data lakes, this will often require a multi-cloud approach. 

Secondly, resilience, all cloud providers suffer outages from time to time, so putting all your workload 'eggs' in one provider's 'basket' runs the risk of a mission-critical application becoming unavailable. A multi-cloud makes for better security, failover, and disaster recovery, in a word, resilience. 

Thirdly,  performance, organizations can minimize latency by choosing a cloud provider with data centers that are geographically close to their customers.

Fourthly, vendor lock-in is to avoid becoming locked into a particular cloud provider's infrastructure, add-on services, and pricing model, and lastly shadow IT. An organization may end up with a multi-cloud strategy by accident, via the agency of 'shadow IT' that is, technology adopted by business units independently of the IT department, which may subsequently be 'reined in' for oversight by the CIO. These characteristics have helped in not only the survival but the splendid success of this concept. 

63 Moons, formerly known as Financial Technologies India, which provides technology solutions in the financial domain and creates innovative platforms for trading, was recently looking for a data management solution that can enhance the cybersecurity posture while delivering a flexible computing environment on the cloud. Today, cloud technology has become imperative for improving business productivity and optimizing costs. 63 Moons have several important applications such as CRM and ERP on the cloud. 

Companies like Netflix and Hulu which experience spikes in bandwidth demand when a new binge-able series debuts on their respective platforms and Uber and Airbnb which have to scale their data capabilities during peak travel periods like rush hour and spring break rely heavily on hybrid cloud data storage due to their on-demand and pay-per-use features ditch their inflexible servers, adjust their data requirements in real-time and save big money on IT in the process. 

As per these recent developments, and innovations of digital infrastructure, Multi-cloud is transitioning from acceptance to ubiquity.